Mother 3 in the USA- hrmm... well...

[Diosoth]

I've played through the Mother 3 fan translation. I suspect NOA's reasons for not porting the game may rely on certain needs for censorship.

The Magypsies would have to be redrawn. Male characters who cross-dress and generally act like gay stereotypes MIGHT have been intended as a message of "accept others despite their differences" by Itoi, but the characters just won't fly here. Religious groups would be screaming, Westboro Baptist would picket... their sprites would have to be redrawn. It'd be a mess to keep them intact and I don't think Nintendo has the guts to do it.

Fassad the evil Arab guy... people were screaming about Osama bin Laden being a killable villain in Postal 2. Muslims go nuts when games have Islamic chants. Another controversial bit Nintendo might be afraid of.

If a US release ever happens I would guarantee both of those elements to be changed pretty heavily.

Most of the game isn't any worse than anything else in the US, aside from those. However, the game is LONG... I've clocked 22 hours into it, and the US game companies seem bent on releasing games that take 4-7 hours to beat.

Also another point of note, though it wouldn't be a problem... Duster is clearly Hugh Laurie. Looks like him and he has House's bum leg. Something tells me Laurie wouldn't care about this, and would probably find it amusing, though Nintendo's legal department might have it as a concern anyway.

[exit]

Most of the game isn't any worse than anything else in the US, aside from those. However, the game is LONG... I've clocked 22 hours into it, and the US game companies seem bent on releasing games that take 4-7 hours to beat.

You've obviously never played any other RPG ever.

[Diosoth]

You've obviously never played any other RPG ever.

What? That has NOTHING to do with the statement. It's been rather common for games to be short, not counting RPGs, most of which rely on grinding to extend a game's play time from 5 hours to 30 hours. Mother 3 is actually a long game. What you said is also irrelevent to games that used to be released. That was then, this is now.

[Cryomancer]

I figured the Magypsies are the primary reason it never came over, yeah. I wonder how the ESRB handles that sort of thing? I'm sure they would piss off some groups either way they did it.

[KEVMAN569]

People are so sensitive these days.

[Arcade_Ness]

You forgot two other parts: the mermen who fill up you air supply underwater by kisses, and the mushroom tripping on that island you crash on.

[c0ldb33r]

I doubt simple censorship is the real reason. How long would it take to redraw a few sprites and/or change some character elements? Not long.

There has to be some other reason. Maybe Nintendo doesn't think the demand is there to make it worth translating? I don't know.

[Jorpho]

DQ3 GBC famously had a gay bar. If that can fly, much of the content in Mother 3 can surely fly as well. I think a big factor in Nintendo's decision was that it was just a GBA game that came out late in the GBA's life cycle.


Most of the game isn't any worse than anything else in the US, aside from those. However, the game is LONG... I've clocked 22 hours into it, and the US game companies seem bent on releasing games that take 4-7 hours to beat.Fifty hours is a long game. I would agree that 20 hours or so is quite reasonable for a JRPG.


Also another point of note, though it wouldn't be a problem... Duster is clearly Hugh Laurie. Looks like him and he has House's bum leg.I don't think sprites that size can really look like anyone.

[Aussie2B]

Games have content like that all the time, and no one cares. It's only with the big-name titles that cause hypersensitive groups of people to turn blue in the face. I mean, people even flipped out over Pokemon, saying that monsters like Abra and Kadabra are references to the occult.

But look at, say, Enchanted Arms, a no-name RPG that almost no one cared about (not even most gamers). The hero's friend is a "flamboyant transvestite"; that's literally what the manual says. Right from the very beginning of the game, he's cooing over the hero trying to turn him into his boyfriend or something.

That's just one of many, many examples in the whole spectrum of games. And how about the head-shooting in Persona 3? Where was the fuss over that? Seemed like most people were just laughing at it.

You could argue that perhaps Mother 3 would be popular enough that people would take notice, but, honestly, I highly doubt it. People don't even care about Cloud cross-dressing in Final Fantasy VII and all the other weird stuff going on in that part of the game (which is also fairly close to the beginning), and Final Fantasy VII is about as big as US-released RPGs come, minus the aforementioned Pokemon.

[bcks007]

What? That has NOTHING to do with the statement. It's been rather common for games to be short, not counting RPGs, most of which rely on grinding to extend a game's play time from 5 hours to 30 hours. Mother 3 is actually a long game. What you said is also irrelevent to games that used to be released. That was then, this is now.

Mother 3 is still a RPG like earthbound was?
Then why are you comparing a RPG's length to other games that aren't RPG's that can be beat in a much shorter time? Doesn't make much sense Imo....
That would be why exit made that statement....

[exit]

What? That has NOTHING to do with the statement. It's been rather common for games to be short, not counting RPGs, most of which rely on grinding to extend a game's play time from 5 hours to 30 hours. Mother 3 is actually a long game. What you said is also irrelevent to games that used to be released. That was then, this is now.

Please tell me how what I said had nothing do with what you said. There was no mentioning in your original statement that said it was strictly related to non RPG games and besides it would make no sense to compare the length of a game like Drake's Fortune to an epic RPG.

Thank you bcks007 for backing me up on this.

[Daria]

What? That has NOTHING to do with the statement. It's been rather common for games to be short, not counting RPGs, most of which rely on grinding to extend a game's play time from 5 hours to 30 hours. Mother 3 is actually a long game. What you said is also irrelevent to games that used to be released. That was then, this is now.

You've obviously have never played any recent RPGs either. :/

[rbudrick]

I was reading somewhere on Starmen.net (perhaps through a link in another thread here somewhere) a big article they did speculating why the Mother games haven't been rereleased here (or released at all). Much of it had to do with major legal issues stemming from some pretty major copyright infringement issues that wouldn't fly today, but could have in the 90s. It was a great article, and while speculative, it was extremely informative and very likely slammed the nail right on the head...can't find the link right now.

-Rob

[norkusa]

Is there any way to play the Mother 3 fan translation on a DS? I tried with my EZ 3-in-1 + GBA Exploader but it says it can't run games bigger than 16mb (Mother 3 is 32mb).

[Jorpho]

Is there any way to play the Mother 3 fan translation on a DS? I tried with my EZ 3-in-1 + GBA Exploader but it says it can't run games bigger than 16mb (Mother 3 is 32mb).It has been done by a great many people with that setup at this point. The trick is to get the game to download into NOR RAM. (It takes a long time the first time you do it, but after that the game loads pretty much instantly every time, until you clear the NOR RAM.)

I'm not sure how you do it with GBA Exploader, but you could use NDStation, making sure you clear the "Use PSRam" option when you create the NDS.

[norkusa]

Ahhh, thanks for the tip Jorpho. Wasn't sure if it was possible. I'll give it a try tonight!

[kupomogli]

Mother 3 makes for a great PSP game.

[norkusa]

Mother 3 makes for a great PSP game.

Thanks, I didn't even think of that. I've been on such a DS kick for the past couple months, I almost forgot I owned a PSP. Sounds like it'd be a lot easier to play on that.

[geneshifter]

Thanks, I didn't even think of that. I've been on such a DS kick for the past couple months, I almost forgot I owned a PSP. Sounds like it'd be a lot easier to play on that.

Yup, I have been playing M3 on my PSP and it runs great! Great game so far.

[Poofta!]

I was reading somewhere on Starmen.net (perhaps through a link in another thread here somewhere) a big article they did speculating why the Mother games haven't been rereleased here (or released at all). Much of it had to do with major legal issues stemming from some pretty major copyright infringement issues that wouldn't fly today, but could have in the 90s. It was a great article, and while speculative, it was extremely informative and very likely slammed the nail right on the head...can't find the link right now.

-Rob

can you try to find it? please? when you have time of course.


i am currently playing through mother3 on my ds (translated, 3in1 etc). it is the first mother game i ever played. its not bad. i am enjoying it so far. i am seriously considering playing it on my psp though, now. i much prefer the psp2000 over the dslite (or any ds in fact). can i transfer the .gba save files? that would be great... will have to experiment tomorrow. what emulator are you using? 100% speed?

as for the 20 hrs comment, 20hrs for a jrpg is on the short side. most Jrpgs are 25-30. RPGs in general are like 25-55 hrs. depending on what you do in them. i remember FF7 took me 40 hrs, and i was pretty meticulous.

sorry Diosoth but you're way off (and that defensive attack you did was pretty off, too).

[Jorpho]

I actually tried to back up the saves on my EZ-Flash IV (I'm kind of obsessive that way) and couldn't figure out how to do it. The one file where it seemed like the save data was stored never actually changed.

By the way, the Mother 1+2 GBA translation should be out any month now. (To be specific, the Mother 2/Earthbound component was just too difficult to bother with, but Mother 1 will apparently have a much more faithful translation than what was in the Earthbound Zero beta.)

[Gameguy]

I was reading somewhere on Starmen.net (perhaps through a link in another thread here somewhere) a big article they did speculating why the Mother games haven't been rereleased here (or released at all). Much of it had to do with major legal issues stemming from some pretty major copyright infringement issues that wouldn't fly today, but could have in the 90s. It was a great article, and while speculative, it was extremely informative and very likely slammed the nail right on the head...can't find the link right now.

-Rob


can you try to find it? please? when you have time of course.
It's probably not the same article that rbudrick was talking about as it's not from Starmen.net, but it goes into detail describing possible reasons why the games wouldn't be released/rereleased here.

http://earthboundcentral.com/2009/02/earthbound-legal-issues/

[old_skoolin_jim]

I was reading somewhere on Starmen.net (perhaps through a link in another thread here somewhere) a big article they did speculating why the Mother games haven't been rereleased here (or released at all). Much of it had to do with major legal issues stemming from some pretty major copyright infringement issues that wouldn't fly today, but could have in the 90s. It was a great article, and while speculative, it was extremely informative and very likely slammed the nail right on the head...can't find the link right now.


I think what everyone here is failing to acknowledge that, while somewhat popular now, Earthbound just DIDN'T SELL WELL. AT ALL. Back in 1995, Nintendo put a lot into making the game appeal to a non-rpg crowd— humorous scratch'n'sniff print ads, packing the strategy guide in with the game for crying out loud— and despite all that, it never made the splash NoA wanted it to, and because of that, the game got a short print run and was (relatively) quickly discounted (a friend of mine bought his in '96 for $15 at wal-mart, before I had my own SNES).
NoA probably just doesn't want to take another risk like that again and wind up losing more money. Plus, the GBA has officially been dead for a while now. The only way we'd see it in an official form is if they put it on DS or WiiShop.
Sad, yes, but it holds water.

[kupomogli]

can i transfer the .gba save files? that would be great... will have to experiment tomorrow. what emulator are you using? 100% speed?

If the save files are .sav extentions then I'd assume it'd work on any emulator that uses that extention.

I use one of the recent Unofficial GBASP Kai(all in some sortof beta because he was going to make it so you could play wirelessly with GBA games, but then stopped supporting the emulator.) It plays full speed on almost all GBA games except the Golden Sun titles(with frameskip fixing everything but the world map.)

[poloplayr]

People are so sensitive these days.

amen to that

[rbudrick]

It's probably not the same article that rbudrick was talking about as it's not from Starmen.net, but it goes into detail describing possible reasons why the games wouldn't be released/rereleased here.

http://earthboundcentral.com/2009/02/earthbound-legal-issues/


Thanks, GG. Yep. That's the one. Sorry I mentioned the wrong site, everyone!

-Rob